


Beyond The Empty Sky

by mywasteddream



Series: Turning Point Series [4]
Category: Arashi (Band), Japanese Actor RPF
Genre: AU, Angst, Gen, Mentions of Suicide, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-03-19 09:00:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3604236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mywasteddream/pseuds/mywasteddream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino knew him from online games. He had interesting name 空っぽ空, Karappo Sora, empty sky. People call him Sora. Nino called him Sora too, despite knowing his real name. Hongo Kanata. Sora called him Nino, even though Nino's handle was 金次郎 - Kinjiro - from Ninomiya Kinjiro, a name used to bully Nino when he was a child. Sora was seven years younger than Nino. He was sixteen when Nino first talked to him. Sora died when he was twenty one.</p><p>This fic is prelude to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3288263/chapters/7175879">Deep in the Forest</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 空 [empty] [sky]

**Author's Note:**

> unbetaed.

He was raised somewhere near Shinkoiwa station, in Katsushika, a district in Tokyo where small manufacturing companies flourished. His home, too, one of those manufacturing companies. That was until his grandfather's company collapsed a few years following the bubble burst. The factory was left deserted, but his family stayed there. His parents worked in a totally different business that was not harshly affected by the bad economic condition, so they got by.  
  
He did not remember when, exactly, he only remembered that it was about the same time when he first saw someone committed suicide. His mother, his sister, and him were going to visit a relative that early morning of May. They were waiting for the train to arrive when the announcement warned of an express train would pass by without stop. His mother grabbed him by the shoulder to make sure he did not pass the white dotted line. Then he remembered warm spray of liquid as someone jumped right as the train passed. His mother turned him and his sister around so they faced towards the other side. Then authorities swarmed the place and their travel was canceled. His mother decided to go home instead.  
  
It was a few years later that he learned how many accidents involving human happened each year in Shinkoiwa. This, Nino learned from a friend at school. It was a mere statistics that his friend mentioned, because most regular users never saw the horridness that happened when human body was hit by a huge mass that passed at the speed of 120 km per hour. If you succeeded jumping into the platform at the correct time your death was certain. No one survived the crash.  
  
He did not understand. If one wanted to die, why did it in public? Why did it and added burden to others? Late trains. Apologies to write by the deceased's family. The amount of loss due to one death that could not be paid for with money.  
  
Nino did not get into the university he wanted to go just because someone decided to commit suicide the morning he had entrance test. He arrived late, even after he tried using other lines of train. He thought, if one wanted to commit suicide, it should be somewhere far away, in a secluded place, and never be found.  
  
Nino remember he said that to Sora.  
  
Nino knew him from online games. He had interesting name 空っぽ空, Karappo Sora, empty sky. People call him Sora. Nino called him Sora too, despite knowing his real name. Hongo Kanata. Sora called him Nino, even though Nino's handle was 金次郎 - Kinjiro - from Ninomiya Kinjiro, a name used to bully Nino when he was a child. Sora was seven years younger than Nino. He was sixteen when Nino first talked to him.  
  
Sora died when he was twenty one.  
  
Through those six years, never once Nino thought Sora would take a drastic account such as this. He was smart. He went to a prestigious school and then continued studying in a prestigious private university. He had what most people would die having.  
  
  
  
Nino looked up to the small altar before him. It was new. Sora's mother bought it only a few days ago. There, in the middle, a picture of Sora with bright smiling face when he entered his university.  
  
"Thank you for coming here to pay respect," said a middle-age woman who sat a little behind him, "Kanata-san would be happy up there."  
  
"No, it's my pleasure that you let me say goodbye properly," Nino answered politely.  
  
The mother took Nino to sit at the small Japanese-style room next to the room where the altar was. She gave him a cup of warm tea and milk crepe.  
  
"His favorite," Nino said, as he opened the plastic wrapping of the crepe. He knew that brand. Sora posted it in his blog. Blog that his parents might not know at all. Nino remembered the crepe, because Sora hardly posted pictures.  
  
"You knew," the mother smiled faintly. Her eyes, though, were still red.  
  
There was a stretch of silence as Nino bit into the crepe and chewed it. The flavor was vanilla custard cream. Something Sora might like, but Nino would rather chose something more Japanese like green tea or azuki for filling.  
  
"Ninomiya-san," the woman opened up a conversation, "thank you for being Kanata's friend until the end of his life." She bowed. She produced an old, white envelope and slid it towards Nino, "he left this." The envelope was weatherbeaten and crushed. It looked like it had been exposed to rain for sometime.  
  
Nino took the envelope and opened it.  
  
"The letter was addressed to you," she said again.  
  
"Ninomiya Kazunari-sama," it reads, "I decided to write your real name so it might come to you one way or another and not lost to Ninomiya Kinjiro's grave." Nino almost chuckled, even in his suicide letter, Sora kept his sense of humor.  
  
"I am sorry for missing out our raid. I have more urgent mission to tackle. Unfortunately, if this mission succeed, I will not be able to join you in any other raids. I am, however, giving you my log-in. The password is m00nC1-1!ld . Please take the weapons you want. They will be my share of your fights."  
  
"Idiot," Nino cursed as he tried stopping tears that started to warm his eyes.  
  
"Ninomiya-sama," the letter continued, "the stars are bright here. This will be what I see as I finish my mission. It's in the middle of nowhere and you might not like it. The sky is empty, though. The stars are way beyond sky. They don't belong to me."  
  
He blinked and wiped his eyes.  
  
"PS: I hope this letter reaches you somehow. I don't want to make anyone fail entrance test or job interview. Even if I have failed my life, I do not wish to bring anyone down with me."  
  
He folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. There was an emptiness that came from a realization that he had lost a good friend of six years, yet it felt surreal at the same time.  
  
He slid the envelope back to Sora's mother.  
  
"Ninomiya-san, please keep it with you. It is addressed to you," she said, stopping his hand half-way.  
  
He hesitated for a while but then he pulled the envelope and put it in his pocket.

  
  



	2. Messages without reply

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He read through those messages again one by one, six years worth of messages.

He did not think about it until his project was finished a few weeks after. He managed to finish his jobs just in time for the deadline. He never admitted it, but when he worked he practically became a perfectionist and would check and recheck until he was sure there was no glitch nor bugs before sending it to the team. Now that he finally paid off his sleepless nights and deadline-induced stress, he finally came face to face with his other world where he was a wizard in adventure to find the ultimate power.

Usually he would log in and immerse himself in the game for a few days until he received a new job or a feedback, but today he sat there contemplating over a letter he received weeks ago from one of his online friends.

Sora left his hoard for him. 

Sure, he was interested. Sora had that rare shield that he had always wanted and that rare sword that might be useful if he were to battle another team, but still he could not just inherited those. Not this way.

It took him two cigarettes and a mug of black coffee before he finally came to his decision. He entered Sora's account instead of his own. 

As soon as he logged in, message alerts appeared on his screen. 

He noticed that he was the one sending Sora the most. One message a day until finally came that phone call from Mrs. Hongo, telling him to come because they had something to pass from her son. 

Nino thought of Sora like a younger brother he never had, or rather like a reflection of his younger self; witty but a little awkward with others, both thinking that it was too much trouble to go out in the society. Like Sora, he too had been lost into his own despair; he failed entering the university he wanted and was forced to go to a meager university, as soon as he graduated, he got a job in a small company that laid him off less than a year after. True that now he had a job that paid really well, much better than most people, but he did not get it without struggle, not to mention days of no sleeps. The only thing that differed between the two was Nino never thought of giving up.

But he read that depression worked in ways not understood by those who never faced them. He perhaps would never understand what Sora had to struggle with. 

There were other messages from other people, and he patiently replied them one by one, passing the news that Sora had gone. He only mentioned himself as "someone who knows Sora personally" when he sent the mail and told them that "the cause of death is not to be disclosed due to the wish of the family members" and also that "this account will be closed down". Each of the twenty three messages made his heart grew heavier. 

It was the first time he had to pass on such a news and in the end it left him feeling hollow. 

He postponed transferring Sora's possessions into his account for that day. He was spent. Sending twenty three emails was harder than four days of trying to meet the deadline. 

He took another stick of cigarette, staring blankly at the neat handwritten letter. Part of him wondered, why he never realized the signs, and had he realized the death wish, would he prevent it, would he support it? 

"Human life is bothersome," he muttered to himself. 

For years Nino had lived his life like a hermit; basically shutting himself in his apartment and going out only for his job meetings and to visit his family when his mother or sister nagged him to. He shopped online and used delivery service for meals. Other than people from work, the ones he talked to were only a handful of gamers he met online. Social interaction was too bothersome, going out even more so.

His acquaintances would say that he was a very sociable person. He knew his way with words and how to take people's heart. Every time he was forced to join gokon, he would be the popular one, able to hit with a girl or two - despite no relationships ever born from then. Most people are not ready to accept his real self - he soon realized when he was in the university. He learned how most people would back away when they knew Nino's real self - game otaku, shut-in (despite being able to function well in the society). Then those acquaintances would start looking at him with judgement. After all, despite being part of the biggest wheel of Japan's culture, it is not fully acceptable by the society. 

He crushed his cigarette butt into the ashtray next to his mouse and went back to his friend's account and clicked the message history with him. He went through all his own messages to Sora, saying, "where the hell are you?", "you're so responsible for our loss!", and "Sora-chan? Are you OK?"

Then he went through the whole conversation they had for the past six years. Taking time to read carefully each messages he got in one go, the ones not related to game strategies, he started noticing the way Sora grew darker. Those mentions saying how good it could be to live in the world of games, because you can always reset and start from zero, while in real life, no matter how hard you try to reset, it took a long climb towards point zero. Nino knew that feeling. He knew how sick it was to hear "try harder" all the time when he was at the bottom pit of his life, and that was what he actually said to Sora every time he told him about his life - the declining grades, the parents who expected so much, the professors who called him idiot, the labmates who seemed much brighter than him. 

And Nino started to wonder if he had been blinded to the fact that he survived those depressive moments.

By the time he finished six years amount of messages, the sun had gone down and up again, no more coffee in his coffee maker, and a pack of cup noodle stood empty. 

  
  
  


He ignored the fact that he was chain smoking again that night, a habit he usually did only when working.

It did not take him too long to grab his key car and went to find this sleepy town which he had never even heard.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Nino really was called Kinjiro when he was a child. He mentioned it several times in TV shows, one of them was the one Arashi members talked about bullying. It seems like most male born with Ninomiya family name are likely to be teased using this name at one point of their lives. It is common to have Ninomiya Kinjiro statue in front of elementary school building. 
> 
> I love Hongo Kanata ever since I saw him in Moon Child. I felt that the characters he played in GANTZ and Yowakute mo Kattemasu had some resemblance with the one I tried to build in this fiction. The very first idea about why Nino showed up in Turning Point actually used an OC, because I personally hated killing main characters. But knowing the characters that Hongo Kanata had played, I think if someone offered him something similar as Sora in this story, he might still accept it.
> 
> Shinkoiwa, the station in Nino's neighborhood is mentioned as one of the most popular place to commit suicide. One of the pages I read put it on number two, after the famous Aokigahara. I think last month only I saw two mentions in one of news tweets that I follow about accidents involving human (although it could be other, but this mention could indicate someone committing suicide in train lines) in Shinkoiwa. A friend of a friend worked to clean up this kind of accidents, and she mentioned how basically whatever left behind from such impact does not resemble anything at all.


End file.
